I don’t understand how it happened. It’s like one day I woke up, and men and women alike were gushing over My Little Pony. The love for My Little Pony spread so fast, I figured it was going to be another short-lived fad in pop culture like Dubstep or Gagnam Style. Now that Gameloft’s My Little Pony game is out for iOS and Android, I figured I’d give it a try to see how well it sat with me.

The thing is, if you didn’t care about My Little Pony before, this game isn’t going to change your mind. What Gameloft has created is just another town building game with a different skin. It’s really the same formula games such as Smurfs’ Village or The Simpsons TappedOut uses. The premise of My Little Pony involves Nightmare Moon casting Ponyville into darkness. As overlord, you have to bring back all the ponies by rebuilding the town and restoring sunshine.

How do you go about performing your godly duties? Well, you’ll be building homes, shops and attractions. To do that, you have to pay up. My Little Pony has in-game currency in the form of Bits and gems. You already know what’s coming don’t you? You get a modest amount of bits for making bread, cakes and other things, but gems are harder to come by. Gems also speed up the waiting process for doing just about anything in this game. It’s the same old freemium strategy we’ve seen used countless times.

To its credit, the production values in this game are really good. The characters are fully voiced, and the animations are wonderfully colorful and crisp. The mini games are enjoyable as well. It’s a shame you have to wait to play them once you’re finished. It’s just another example at how great mobile games could be if publishers weren’t constantly holding the gameplay hostage in exchange for a steady stream of money.